Sync is a new programme for the cultural sector in Scotland all about prototyping and innovation. At the moment that clunky collection of words might not mean a great deal to you, so for this launch post we wanted to tell you as simply as possible why Sync exists and why it’s important.
Innovation is a dangerous word in the arts & cultural sector right now. And this is down to the following four commonly held views which if not balanced out can hold us and our organisations back:
1. Anything digital is innovation. The reason definitions are helpful is because it allows all of us to know we’re talking about the same thing. At Sync HQ we talk about innovation as what happens when you use new thinking and new tools to make a real difference – and the more radical the new thinking and new tools, the more radical the innovation. So of course those tools may be digital but the risk with conflating digital with innovation is that innovation is already challenging because it’s about change. Add on how digital tools and practice can be difficult for some people and that adds even more of a barrier. So while Sync will certainly feature lots about digital innovation, we’re most interested in innovation itself – solving problems in new ways.
2. Digital will make us money. This is another very common and potentially toxic view. Either consciously or not, many of our cultural organisations believe that if only they can work it out, there is a Magic Digital Project out there that will create a whole new sustainable and profitable revenue stream. This may well be the case and if so, then congratulations. However most of the time this view is based on an urgent need to fill in a hole in a balance sheet rather than any clear market-driven opportunity. It is also based on an understanding of digital innovation which sees the massive successes of Facebook and Zynga without seeing the vast majority of startups that never make it into profit. If executed really well with the right product and the right market, digital projects can create revenue but to highlight that as a condition will stifle creativity and innovation not stimulate it.
3. Digital innovation is intimidating. This is a valid view. We we are constantly told the stories of high profile cultural innovation ‘success stories’ such as NT Live while at the same time read about the latest shiny new technology and research into wacky teenager gadget-enabled behaviour in the Guardian. The former makes innovation feel beyond the reality of our resources and our capacity and the later just makes the pace of change feel all too much. No wonder it makes us then go on to feel that…
4. We’re not ready for innovation. Which of course is the saddest of all. While every practitioner and organisation has issues of time and headspace the only necessary factors for getting into innovation should be a felt sense of the need for improvement and change and the interest and commitment to see it through. Even an organisation with the most basic digital development can take part in their own innovation journey as long as they see the need for change whatever that might be and the interest to pursue it.
There is a missing middle of digital support between the basic digital development support and the larger scale innovation funding – that’s where Sync fits in. We will be making relatively low-cost, low-risk environments where cultural practitioners and organisations can explore innovation in a way that works for them while at the same time being challenged and stretched.
And since we feel that there is already quite enough talking about innovation, we place the emphasis squarely on making – which we also call prototyping so that you can test ideas out in reality and allocate an appropriate level of resources to it that you are willing to risk before getting yourself into an innovation project that doesn’t quite do what you want it to do.
